The Day Nobody Sat Down: A Thrissur Pooram Story

One word. Both arms.

Before she knew the word for elephant, Ammu knew how to ask for her mother.

She would stop in the middle of whatever she was doing, look up and stretch out both arms. Sometimes she said it. Sometimes she didn’t need to.

Up.

At eighteen months, the world was full of things Ammu wanted to reach. The kitchen counter. A window latch. The flowers in her grandmother’s hair. And, that week, a festival her family had been talking about for days.

Anjana had grown up with Pooram stories. She remembered the parasols as enormous flowers opening above the crowd. She remembered holding someone’s hand so tightly that her fingers hurt. Now she was the one packing the bag.

Water. A cotton cap. A change of clothes. A meeting point agreed with Hari. A plan to leave early if Ammu had had enough.

The terracotta hip seat lay beside the bag. In this imagined first outing with Nest, Anjana fastened it around her waist, settled Ammu onto the seat and kept a supporting arm around her back.

Ammamma watched from the doorway.

“She has legs, you know,” she said.

As if to settle the argument, Ammu lifted both arms again.

The drums, from a distance.

By afternoon, Thrissur seemed to move in one direction. White mundus. Kasavu borders. Umbrellas lifted above heads. The city carried its festival in flashes of colour.

Anjana had imagined seeing everything. With Ammu beside her, she began choosing instead.

They stayed away from the densest crowd and the loudest music. Ammu wore child hearing-protection earmuffs; when the sound and bustle grew too much, they moved on. Hari carried the bag and found somewhere quieter for water and shade.

Under a shop awning, Ammamma took out a small cloth and wiped a damp curl from Ammu’s forehead.

“Enough?” Anjana asked.

Ammu pointed towards a flash of purple beyond the rooftops.

Not quite.

The view she almost missed.

When the kudamattam began, the parasols rose and changed above the decorated elephants: crimson, purple, gold. From their viewing spot, well back from the animals and behind the barriers, the movement looked almost like a conversation with the sky.

Ammu went still.

Then both arms flew up.

Not towards Anjana this time. Towards the colour.

Around them, phones lifted. Anjana’s stayed in her bag. She watched the surprise travel across her daughter’s face—the raised eyebrows, the open mouth, the sudden laugh.

For a moment, she remembered being small herself, seeing only pieces of a festival through the shoulders of adults. Someone had lifted her then, too.

She couldn’t remember whose arms they were. Only that, suddenly, she could see.

A smaller celebration.

They did not stay for everything.

By evening, Ammu’s pointing had slowed. Her cheek found Anjana’s shoulder. The family chose home over another stretch of crowd, and left the late-night fireworks out of their plans.

At home, someone pulled out a chair. Anjana sat, loosened the belt and let Hari take Ammu while she drank her tea.

Through the window came the ordinary sounds of the house: a tap running, cups touching saucers, Ammamma asking whether anyone had eaten.

Anjana had photographs of the festival from other years. This year, the moment she kept returning to was a little pair of hands reaching into the sky.

What Ammamma remembered.

Over morning tea, Ammamma picked up the seat.

She pressed her thumb along the fabric. Found the zip. Opened it. Closed it. For a while, she said nothing.

“When he was this age,” she said to Anjana, nodding towards Hari, “I used to fold a cloth here.” She touched her waist. “Just to help while I held him.”

Hari looked up from his cup. He had never heard that story.

“Did your mother show you?” Anjana asked.

Ammamma thought for a moment.

“Maybe. Or I watched her do it.”

She turned the seat over once more, then placed it beside Anjana’s tea.

“So,” she said, “did she see the umbrellas?”

Anjana took out her phone at last. Not a photograph of the procession. A short video Hari had made of Ammu’s astonished face.

Ammamma watched it twice.

From the floor, a familiar voice interrupted.

“Up.”

This time, Ammamma put down her cup first.

Some things are worth carrying forward.
Some are already reaching for us.